Is there any interest is 3d printed parts?

I was looking around online, and I saw a ton of requests for the slowstick parts. The tail is super easy to replace with dollar tree foam board, but the rest really isn't available. I know there are a few other 10mm motor mounts out there, but the rest is gone.

Does anyone have any old slow sticks laying around that they just can't get plastic parts for?

I think most people have no idea of the process used in creating 3D printed parts. You may have more requests if the requirements expected from the potential customer were clearly spelled out. For instance, if I wanted Part A made up, could I just draw up a sketch with some dimensions? Would you need some type of CAD drawing? Could I just send the part I wanted made?

You cannot just sketch something up and expect it to print okay. A box, like a loop around a square tube, can't just be built in any direction. It needs to be built up. You cant just float the object in mid air while it prints and expect it to work good or be the exact size. Different printers also have different sized print beds. If mine is 10" build platform and you want to build parts on a 4" platform, you will need to cut up the print into smaller chunks or even do each peice one at a time.

Another thing is the variance in printers, plastics and actual dimensions. My printer might be better setup then yours. If you are okay filing square holes until it fits, or drilling out round holes, no problem. If you want to just download a file and print it, it will need some minor touch up work or tweaking. Might need to enlarge it by .5% to get the dimensions close enough it works.

However....

I can test, measure and design parts that I know will work on my own personal 3d printer. Once I correct the variance and get what I want, I can print 50 of then with no touch up or work in between.

That why I brought up slow stick parts and 10mm motor mounts. I can make them all 10mm so they will fit every 10mm stick with ultra percesion.

If you want to download and print it, id recommend oversizing it a bit then using a dap of hot glue or something similar to make it a tight fit.

Once guys realize you can build them a 10mm motor mount for pennies worth of plastic, that $8 e flight motor mount doesn't look so appealing at the hobby shop. Rather then compete with a hobby shop, id rather produce things that are no longer made or discontinued.

Before my dad started making plastic parts, I would buy a whole $28 slow stick because every hobby shop was always out of the plastic stuff. Now that you can't buy them, I am trying to gauge interest on who might need replacement parts. I know, I'm probably the only guy here with 10 slow sticks with one or two broken parts, but most guys I know have 2 or 3 and just need that one landing gear mount to take it out again.

Or you could go to ebay and pay $92+ shipping for a $25 airplane or $50 for the $10 plastic parts.

Each 3d printed part might take between an hour and 5 hours to make. But once you get it all dialed in you can make a bunch of them with no real headache.

In all honesty, unless you really know how a 3d printer works, it would be difficult to model or really understand how the cad might print. I could make one offs or custom stuff, but it is extremely labor intensive if stuff doesn't go right.

Lets pretend 20 people wanted a plastic bracket or wing brace for a gws tiger moth. It wouldn't be too big of a deal to make 20 of them, then from that point for words it would be a simple click and print with just build time.

However, making 20 different one off parts could take a month or two in free time to produce all the parts. Then to add, not everyone will understand the benefits or limitations if the plastic. It can be made to replace a production quality part, but it may have to be thicker or built different to allow it to be printed properly and strong enough. These are the same limitations that companies face, but they are also built in bulk on a mass scale usually.

I'm not looking to make money, just want to help someone get an old bird in the air without too much effort or cost. If its a discontinued price that you break all the time, we could make a better and stronger version.

One example, I am work I on designing a trike gear mount for a 10mm stick. I am trying to come up with materials to use that are readily available, scaleable (even 450 sized motors commonly use a 10" prop. That would be the size of a .40 nitro job) and making it cheap light and strong is a bigger limitation then just making a bracket that will work.

However, it would make a trike gear stupid easy for guys that use 10mm sticks in custom foam board or even balsa built models.

Although GWS no longer sells the Slow Stick models (or anything for that matter) and Caliber Hobby (another name for GWS) is hit or miss (mostly miss).......there are two other places that "after market" fuselage hardware, motor mounts, landing gear, wings, rudder, elevator, linkage, ect., can be purchased.........:

The prices and shipping here in the U.S. are very reasonable.......a complete package of plastic fuselage hardware to include battery carriage is under $10.00, with motor mounts add another $5.00.

Both places have numerous up-grades in the same price ranges and in stock and available (as of a couple of weeks ago), when I built one for a buddies kid.

For under $25.00 tax and shipping w/o power supply, esc and servos, not to bad.

The whole darn thing (I had wings, sticks, rudder, linkage and elevators laying around from older kits I purchased a few years ago) using a new Spektrum RX, 2s 7.4v, and Heads Up brushless, cost me under $65.00.

Speaking specifically to Slow Stick parts availability as referenced by the OP........the "Service" option for such seemed geared towards that as massed produced if one was in need......a thoughtful gesture if they are available free or at pennies to the dollar for Wattflyer members.

Try ordering anyrhing from radical rc as far as slow stick replacement stuff goes. They have some of the laser cut modifications available still, but I'm pretty sure that with all the slow sticks drying up, there gonna go away or not be stocked either. Almost every gws replacement part is listed as long lead time or no longer available.

The first motor mount my dad 3d printed for me was because I couldn't get the gws 35mm motor mount from anywhere, including radical rc. Heads up did manage to get a few, but I had to wait a few months and they also promptly stopped carrying them. This was 2 years ago. The supply of gws parts has always been a joke and took a ton of leg work and multiple phone calls, trips to hobby shops, or different online vendors until you found the plastics kit. Been that way for 5 years or more.

Stevens aero only has the wing mounts and servo tray, along with a Velcro strap and tray for a battery. It would be a good option if you only needed those parts though.

No landing gear. No wheels for landing gear, no tail wheel, the wing or wing braces and most importantly (and most likely to break) no 10mm motor mount.

I guess if ya really want you can go over to millennium and pay $20 plus shipping for landing gear and nearly exact copies of slowstick parts. I really didnt like the landing gear though. Mine broke on the first landing (it was a bit rough to be fair though) and they sell replacement carbon fiber sticks but not any of the plastic. I even had a spare set, and broke that one within a day or two as well.

So yeah, I guess if you go over and hit 5 different hobby shops and online retailers, you can almost get one complete set of plastic parts for about 10x the cost that gws used to sell theirs for.

Or you could download files (which we uploaded for free on thingy verse) and print them out and spend the $.02 in plastic it would cost for most replacement parts.

Actually, my dad has several bags we will call crash kits. He carries them around in the back of his car and gives them away when he runs into other modelers.

The thread may have gone quiet but I print lots of parts for my planes. In my case they are mainly scale and in Depron so the parts have to be carefully designed to be as light as possible but still achieve the required duty or appearance.
Lightweight fuselage formers work well.
A stack of 10 for a Depron skinned fuselage
Inside the completed fuselage.
In this case a printed scale 9 cylinder radial and engine mount bulkhead go on the front.
Rather time consuming to CAD design (and to print) but I am pretty sure it would be hard to achieve a similar result by any other method.